What is the Akai MPC 2000XL Interface?

Series Summary

Hip-hop music has grown from rich roots: its lyrics record the struggles and joys of the everyday lives of everyday people. Its infectious beats and grooves lay down the framework for people to get together, dance, have a party, or just enjoy an afternoon. To create those funky sounds and beats, DJs, producers, rappers, and hip-hop artists have depended upon one machine in particular that has single-handedly changed the face of music for a generation of artists and listeners: the Akai Music/Midi Production Center (MPC).

The MPC is a sampler, sequencer, and drum machine all in one. Its basic functionality is designed around a system of buttons called pads. To create beats, the artist loads samples into the MPC, assigns them to pads, and plays his composition. The MPC can also be used to control or send information to other devices through a midi connection. Using these basic functions, literally hundreds of great songs have been, written, recorded, and enjoyed.

In this free tutorial video, learn how to get started using the Akai MPC 2000XL drum machine. Our expert music producer will give you a tour of the basic interface for the MPC, and then show you how to load, chop, and slice samples, layer a beat, use the sequencer, and create a basic hip-hop beat of your own.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I’m Amir from Precision Audio Productions and on behalf of Expert Village this will be an introduction to the interface of the MPC 2000XL starting from the right side. What we have is starting form the top the main volume button, which is the main output of sound from the MPC 2000. We have the record gain, which controls the level of a signal coming into the MPC. We have the full level button, which makes it thought that when you trigger the buttons, the pads on a MPC it triggers them at the maximum volume. Sixteen level buttons makes it so that one sample could be spread across the entire, all the pads and we have next sequence which moves into the next sequence. We have the track/mute button, which makes it so that you can mute individually different tracks. We have pad banks, we have 16 pads on a MPC and each bank that you hold 16 different samples, so that’s 16 samples on A, 16 on B, 16 on C, 16 on D. That is the right side of the interface of a MPC 2000XL, thank you very much."